So we’ve been planning for a super winter holiday as the boys were reminiscing about our winter trip to Korea back in 2013. And in Feb 2017, Singapore Airlines had a superb promotion and we wanted to grab it fast. While we were discussing about the trip, a few friends came to know about it and we invited them along. BIG MISTAKE.

1. Family #1 had many concerns about a long trip. Budget, unable to leave elder family members behind, uncertainty about coping with their kids on a cold trip, worried about the cold affecting their kids, etc. They did not join us after much consideration.

2. Family #2 was a little more spontaneous and decided to go along. But here’s when trouble started.

There were a lot of warning signs pre-trip which I brushed off because “we are friends mah”. Bad choice. I should have just stopped planning for them. Our trip was basically wasted money. Till now, I still feel very lousy about the trip because we wasted our time and money. And nope, they are not apologetic about it.

Warning Sign #1
They couldn’t make up their mind about travel dates.
When they finally made up their minds, they were dragging on booking the tickets.
Both husband and wife were waiting for each other to book/confirm.

Thankfully I didn’t wait for them to book our tickets. I went ahead when I saw the price was what I wanted and told them we can fly in separately if they couldn’t get the same flight then meet in Korea.

Warning Sign #2
Their bochap attitude. For those who know me, I love planning. I can easily spend hours and hours planning, reading up and actually make recce trips to check the places before bringing my kids. However, this trip is not ours only. Our friends are coming along. So I had to involve them in the planning.

I asked for a list of places they would like to visit or things they wanna do or food they wanna eat. Since the day we confirmed the trip.

Took them very long, a lot of chasing on my side for the list to be given to me.

Following their list, I drafted a suggested plan. Forward via WhatsApp numerous times. Invited them to my parent’s place on Saturdays (too many to count) so that we could sit down and figure out the details. Nope. No planning ever happened.

They wanted to head to Nami Island but Ahjussi and I just went there with the kids in June 2016 and we felt that there’s nothing much there in winter. Especially there’s no place to hide from the cold wind on the island. We told them that we shall split up that day, they can go ahead with Nami and we will go ahead to do work (meet suppliers) or find something else. I gave them a lot of links to information like tours or how to get there by public transport.

For those who want to know what I planned, this is the rough draft that never got finalised: Our Dec 2017 Plan

Warning Sign #3
Money issues. They had from Feb 2017 till Dec 2017 to save up… but…
While it is not my position to judge how other couples handle their money, their money issues became quite a big thing. One promised to pay for the trip and talk big. He was working for us at events to earn the extra cash for the trip. But end up, nope. He totally forgot what he promised and squandered his ‘hard earned money’ away.

Well, that’s not my problem. But it affected us and the trip. Why? Because they want to go BUDGET. Every time we had to go somewhere for a meal, we had to check menu/prices and ask if they are OK before we sat down to eat. As a result, Ahjussi was upset because the food wasn’t good.

To be honest, bring kids on trip cannot too budget. Want to budget, please go Batam or JB for holiday. Not spend so much to fly so far then tell us want to go on budget.
Right from the start, I have already given the estimated expenses:
(a) SGD20/pax/meal + Misc snacks/coffee
(b) When change apartment take taxi so it is easier with the luggage and faster. SGD15-20/taxi (they only need 1 taxi, we have to split into 2 taxis)
(c) Entrance fees can easily be found at the links I gave them
(d) Their own shopping

Warning Sign #4
They are always late when we meet. The word ‘punctual’ doesn’t seem to be in their dictionary.

My kids are early risers. We enjoy spending more time looking around on a trip than to laze in bed. If it was a trip to laze in bed, we would have chosen another location.

We knew they are not punctual but we didn’t expect a daily delay of 1.5h to 2h! Agreed to meet 9am but end up delay till 10am, sometimes after meet still slowly go convenience store and eat instead of move off. It’s really a waste of good time!

And because we know we have to be responsible to another family traveling with us, we made the kids sleep on time so they can wake up easily in the morning. We trained the boys before the trip to be able to put on their many layers of winter wear without much assistance so we can focus on Meimei and make every morning a breeze to get ready. I knew the kids need around 45min to get ready. The husband needed his poop time before we head out. So 1h before we meet is perfect time to get the kids ready. And I woke up 30min earlier than the kids to get myself ready.
And they don’t inform us early that they were unable to meet at the decided time. Instead, at 9am when we msg them then they will ask us to wait. So my kids are already in their winter wear and sitting in the hot apartment waiting for 1h!

And initially when we planned the trip, we agreed: Whoever is late will just go to the destination themselves and meet later.
But nope. Because they didn’t bother to plan or even print the draft I gave them, they were clueless and basically expect to follow us around only.

Warning Sign #5
They can’t handle their kid. So I’ve been at the receiving end of “he doesn’t help with the kid” and “she cannot handle the kid” type of complaints from the couple individually before the trip.

Every marriage is TEAMWORK. If you can’t handle your kid, then please don’t travel with friends and inconvenience others.

To be honest, the joke Ahjussi and I had before the trip was…. “Will we end up reach Korea to claim bodies and pick the kid up?”
Because they arrive 2 days before us. And they are forever quarreling and very not paiseh to openly quarrel in front of us and even in front of my whole family when they go to my parent’s place for dinner.

Conclusion: I don’t want to travel with such friends anymore.(P/S: Due to other things they did after the trip, we chose not to meet this family anymore. Lying about damaging winter coat we lent them ain’t cool. If you did it, admit it and apologize. Don’t lie about it. We are not dumb. One look and we knew.)

This whole trip was just about WAITING. Because not only did they turn up late to meet, they wasted a lot of time here and there. Why? Because they drag travel time between places too. Initially they told me to pack it full to make full use of our time there. So I planned 3-5 places a day which was definitely doable when I brought my own kids. But with them, we end up doing 1-2 things a day only.

Per location planned, it took me at least 5 hours of research and reading up. So every time we had to skip a place, I’m mad! And I found myself telling my boys, “It’s OK to miss this during this trip. We will come back again next time. I will bring you here again.”

So unless we are following a tour group and the friends don’t flag the above warning signs, we will not travel with friends anymore.
I have friends who are totally NOT like the above and we would love to do a mass trip with multiple families soon!

Mummy AudreyMummy to Big Boy, Baby Oppa & Meimei

Note: Mummy Audrey runs her own online store, www.TLO.com.sg, while looking after her 3 kids ages 11yo, 6yo, and 3yo. Her business focuses on Korean baby products, thus she travels to Korea frequently to source for new and unique products to bring into Singapore.

Mummy Audrey and her children are available for product/service reviews as long as the products/services are not conflicting with her own products. Do contact her directly at audrey@TLO.com.sg if you are interested for her to review your product.

If you noticed, we are starting to slack! This is our first 2 week trip with kids and no help to Korea, so by now, we were really pooped out. Especially since we really went non stop from place to place daily since we arrived.

As we decided to head to Lotte World tomorrow, we decided that today will be a chillax day. Just find somewhere nice to occupy the kids and we get to rest a little.

So again, we slept till we woke up naturally, gave the kids milk. And grapes (again – because the host really gave us a whole lot of grapes).

We headed out for a simple breakfast because Baby Oppa wanted chocolate cake.

We decided to have breakfast at Ediya which shares a unit with Mad Fry Chicken.

Then we headed into Coex and looked around.

Came across Coex Aquarium which looked really impressive. Made a mental note to come back again for this (went to search for cheap tickets immediately). The boys were pretty excited about this.

So to occupy the kids, we decided to head to…

Pororo Lounge P!

It’s a small and cozy place. The adults didn’t need to run far or hard. The kids did the running and we could eyeball them easily here.

Mini maze which Meimei found amusing.

Baby Oppa on the slide!

And someone trying to be funny… (WARNING: MUTE BEFORE YOU PLAY!)

Nice longish ball pit!

Most decent photo of them together… After this, they went crazy and ran all over the place!

Very interesting “sand play” area. It’s made up of tiny wooden beads!

Little boys will love this~

Toilets inside the place. No need to get out at all!

Nice & clean!

Diaper Changing area.

Water dispenser (hot & cold)

Snack & feeding area

Potential Ah Lian!

Infant room! With toys and rockers for them

And this was the highlight of the place for Baby Oppa!

Someone thinks this is a stroller?

She finally realised it after some time… While watching how the other kids play with it!

Final pic together before we leave the place.

Collected our stroller from their stroller parking area…

The cafe area is really huge and great for parties!

And of course… The gift shop…

We spent the rest of the day hanging around Coex (again). Shopping…

Ahjussi was wondering why is the slope there?

Then walking outside to check out the neighbourhood.

Meals were the same boring stuff (Saemaul & Mad Fry Chicken).

Saw this along the way but it didn’t look appealing to us.

Great way to keep the kids happy without tiring ourselves out. I managed to sneak a nap with Meimei in the infant room!

Note: Mummy Audrey runs her own online store, www.TLO.com.sg, while looking after her 3 kids ages 9yo, 5yo, and 1yo. Her business focuses on Korean baby products, thus she travels to Korea frequently to source for new and unique products to bring into Singapore.

Mummy Audrey and her children are available for product/service reviews as long as the products/services are not conflicting with her own products. Do contact her directly at audrey@TLO.com.sg if you are interested for her to review your product.

So, the day started off with us waking up late as we were too tired from all the walking at Seoul Forest followed by shopping at Wangsimni!

Lazing around

After the kids decided to wake up, we headed to Coex, which was just across the road. Love the convenience of this Gangnam apartment! They munched on grapes again for breakfast and Ahjussi made porridge for us too. Perks of living in an apartment with kitchen.

First stop at Coex: Lotte Duty Free!

Baby Oppa wanted a photo with the stars!

I wanted to buy some gifts from MCM for our Sure Win Lucky Dip (event for our baby fairs). So this is the right place to be shopping at!

Do note that photo taking INSIDE MCM is NOT ALLOWED. The staff will be very fast to either cover your phone or snatch it away. Don’t be surprised. If your friends are asking you to help them find something, just show the photo/screenshot to the staff will do.

And Ahjussi went to get some additional discounts or something. I can’t remember clearly. So I hung around with 3 kids while waiting for him to settle that.

He came back and saw this. Guess who got scolded. OOPSIES!

Mad fun!

Many cute little displays all over the mall for photo taking!

We were getting hungry so we decided to settle down for something to eat. Too lazy to think, so we just plonked ourselves down at this restaurant serving Andong Chicken Stew.

Turned out… It was SPICY!!! The boys had to down a lot of rice & water. Looks innocent yet super spicy although we requested no chili! Be warned! Not kid friendly!
We bought the boys burgers after this.

Loads of seafood! Really value for money. 34,000 won per set (can feed 4 but both of us finished it all).

And we were really too tired to do anything else! We headed back to the apartment to rest.

So while the boys enjoyed their free time (TV/iPad), Meimei was busy looking for stuff to play. We don’t believe in bringing many toys along during a trip, so she had to find her own entertainment. Kids learn more when not given toys, this trip really proved this point to us! We were surprised at her stacking skills!

Ahjussi went to tabao dinner. Amongst all the fried chicken we had in Korea (we’ve tried all the ‘branded’ ones that were recommended), this is our ultimate fave! MAD FRY CHICKEN!

For convenience, Ahjussi ordered boneless drumsticks.

This is it! I think this is half dozen? He bought other food too. Complimentary pickled radish which we seldom ate.

Their dips were mouth watering. The boys enjoyed the cheese dip a lot! I preferred their chili dip. Slightly spicy with a tangy feel.

I don’t have the exact address to this place. But if you are near Coex, it is just across the road from 7-Luck Casino’s main entrance. Sharing same premises as Ediya cafe. They apparently have many branches all over Korea, so maybe Google can help you find an outlet near where you will be staying at!

Note: Mummy Audrey runs her own online store, www.TLO.com.sg, while looking after her 3 kids ages 9yo, 5yo, and 1yo. Her business focuses on Korean baby products, thus she travels to Korea frequently to source for new and unique products to bring into Singapore.

Mummy Audrey and her children are available for product/service reviews as long as the products/services are not conflicting with her own products. Do contact her directly at audrey@TLO.com.sg if you are interested for her to review your product.

We started the day with breakfast in our Gangnam apartment as the kids slept in. We ate very juicy grapes which our host bought for us!

First stop when we headed out was for lunch. This restaurant was highly recommended online when we were searching for food near our Gangnam apartment. Thankfully, it was just a few steps away from our apartment, on the way to the train station.

Saemaul Sikdang 새마을 식당 has many outlets around Seoul. You can simply Google for the outlet nearest to you. 🙂

Non spicy pork soup for the boys!

Food was affordable if you order the one dish sets. Grilled meat can get pricey.
Ahjussi ordered a stew and I ordered the 7min Pork Stew. It was superb! We kept coming back for more.

Taste wise it was yummy and the boys enjoyed their food. They serve dried seaweed (FREE FLOW) to the boy’s delight. Any restaurant with free slow dried seaweed, the boys will help themselves and flood their rice bowls. And they can finish 2 bowls of rice each when there’s seaweed around.

After lunch, we headed over to Seoul Forest. This place is amazing! It’s a forest in the middle of the city. Loads to do and see!

How to go to Seoul Forest:
(1) Take the train to Seoul Forest Station
(2) Take EXIT 3(3) Find the escalator
(4) You can use the elevator
(5) You will see this once you are out of the station
(6) See this sign? You can choose to go either ways and you will arrive at the forest. We chose the left side, which happened to be nearer to the Visitor’s Centre (where you can get maps). There’s a convenience store at the Visitor’s Centre and also you can hide there to escape the heat (during summer or hot days).
(7) Just keep walking and follow the sign.

We saw this along the way. Interesting rest stop and there’s a greenhouse next to it!

(8) Arrived!

Visitor’s centre. Too bright for them to smile properly at me!

Baby Oppa loved the piano! Insisted on waiting for everyone else to move off, then he ran back to play!

First time seeing a real APPLE TREE!

While I admired the lovely butterflies, Meimei got her first taste of ICE CREAM! And she loves it!

Walking further into the forest, we chanced on the Butterfly Garden.

Meimei gave us a weird look when we asked her to pose!

Pouting because the boys went with Ahjussi into an insect place and “NO STROLLERS ALLOWED”. She refused to put on her shoes and get off the stroller, so we hung around outside.

I managed to run in for a quick photo of the insect place.

As we walked further in, there were rabbits!

And finally, we arrived at the main attraction! Our reason for all that walking!
The deers!

You can feed the deers here!

Vending machine for deer food.

Insert 1 x 1,000 won bill. Then press the button (both buttons are the same).

Food being dispensed!

Collect your cup of food.

Looks like dried kibbles and some dried corn kennels.

Took them a while to realised there were people here wanting to feed them!

So near!

Information poster on how to feed the deer!

Big Boy was so brave and he loved it! Baby Oppa wanted to try but he was afraid that the deer will bite him. A previous trip to the goat farm in Singapore didn’t help as the goat nibbled on him and how he has a weird fear of animals.

My turn! But I was also afraid of them licking my hand. So… Direct from the cup!

Sorry for the blurry photo. You-Know-Who took this. Anyway, they have stands for you to recycle the cup!

And of course, please only feed them with the designated feed for their health. Feeding them human food may cause them to be sick!

We continued our stroll and saw many interesting art fixtures!

And a wonderful play area! Too bad we were in a rush to check out another place so the kids just had to admire the place instead of play here. We’ll be back again soon!

After a whole afternoon of walking, it was almost dinner time. We wanted to get out of the forest before it turned dark as we observed that there wasn’t much lamps in the forest itself, so getting out before it turns dark will be a better idea. Especially since we are not familiar with the place and needed to refer to the map quite often.

From Seoul Forest Station, we decided to head to Wangsimni Station for dinner and some shopping.

We love E-mart at Wangsimni! It’s our ‘must go’ place when we are in Seoul.

I waited outside for him and happened to read an article on how others managed to travel in Seoul on tight budget and wanted to try it out too. So we looked around this building and decided on our dinner menu: Gimbab!

Anyway, we found this really nice indoor playground here at Wangsimni Station. It’s super near the Gimbab place!

Not a very huge place but good space planning allowed them to pack in a lot of different play areas and activities.

Note: Mummy Audrey runs her own online store, www.TLO.com.sg, while looking after her 3 kids ages 9yo, 5yo, and 1yo. Her business focuses on Korean baby products, thus she travels to Korea frequently to source for new and unique products to bring into Singapore.

Mummy Audrey and her children are available for product/service reviews as long as the products/services are not conflicting with her own products. Do contact her directly at audrey@TLO.com.sg if you are interested for her to review your product.

Many of us have formed friendships with ladies with similar EDD during our pregnancy through forums or Facebook groups. And many times, we are wondering what meaningful activities can we have at our gatherings…

We were invited by SoapLah to try out a breast milk making workshop and we got our hands working!

SoapLah is a simple set up. They are dedicated to bringing affordable natural skincare to everyone. Their place isn’t some fancy set up, but the trainers were friendly and we had a great time.

Their simple set up, a room inside this Bright Sea Air-Con Engineering.

Cozy room and informative presentation

There’s a lot of terminology to learn in soap making but I shall not spoil the fun. SoapLah has beautiful PowerPoint presentations to teach you what you need to know!

The place is a little small so the max at each workshop is 6 pax. They are not able to bring the workshop to you due to regulations as soap making is required to be in an industrial area with certain criteria to meet. But, it is totally worth heading over. Carpark is not an issue (can park on same level) and the bus stop is pretty nearby if you are not driving.

Very hardworking students!

Soap making requires some detailed calculation. If you are too lazy to work your brains (so rare to get time off from the kids right), you can use their standard formula. However, the fun of making your own soap is being able to customise to your likes and needs.

Large variety of quality ingredients provided

I was impressed the moment they opened up their secret cabinet. The variety of oils we can use was crazy! So much variety that we started getting dizzy because we couldn’t decide!

Measuring the individual ingredients was an art too. We had to be ultra careful in order not to waste our breast milk!

For Safety: All Geared Up!

As we were working with lye (a necessary ingredient in soap making but once the soap has cured, it is totally of no effect to us when we use the soap), we had to gear up for safety.
Goggles – Checked
Masks – Checked
Aprons – Checked
Gloves – Checked

SoapLah uses a slightly different method from another workshop I attended. To speed things up and ensure a smooth mixture, they use liquid lye with crystals instead of crystals only. As liquid lye will interact faster with the frozen breast milk and heat it up due to the chemical reaction, we had to place the mixture in ice and monitor the temperature very carefully. It was thrilling and nerve wrecking for us, but the trainers were superb and very helpful.

While we beat the mixture to get a smooth consistency, we were having loads of fun chatting!

We each chose our own preferred essential oils and powders to add to our breast milk soap. This is the fun of soap making! Different oils and powders have different purposes. I made this with Ahjussi in mind so I wanted something anti bacterial for him as his workplace is quite dirty. A nice shower with my breast milk soap makes him come alive again and he loves it!

All the different colours due to different oils and powders added! And the trainers told us that the colours may change again after curing! The final product is really a mystery!

Curing takes quite a while because they need to ensure that the lye has totally saponificated (very scientific term). That will mean that the pH level is no longer alkaline. SoapLah is a trusted team, they checked and ensured the soaps were safe before packaging and informing us to collect them.

And they were right about the colour of the final product! There were 3 greenish ones in the mold but only 2 really obvious greenish ones in the final product we collected!

And also, as every one’s breast milk differs, even using the same oils and portions, the soap can turn out different due to individual’s breast milk. Some are thicker (whiter), some are more creamy yellow, some are more translucent.

This is the beauty of breast milk soap!

If you are not breastfeeding anymore but you want to try making soaps which are NATURAL and good for your skin, do contact SoapLah!

You can shop at their online store www.soaplah.com and take your time to browse through the selection available! They’ve also listed their workshops, so do sign up! If you are forming your own private group, do drop them an email and they will get back to you.

Thank you to SoapLah once again for giving us a chance to do this review and we loved it very much!

Benefits of attending a workshop to make your own soap:
(1) You can see for yourself what goes into your soap!
(2) Learn more about your skincare!
(3) Customise your soap for your needs and liking!
SoapLah’s Contact
Email: soaplah@gmail.com
Location: 5 Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 2A (Tech II) [Detailed address will be given when you sign up for workshops]

If you wish for them to make your breast milk instead soap instead of attending the workshop… Prices start at $54 per 10 pieces of 90g (around 900g of soap).

Mummy Audrey
Mother of 3 and made a crazy amount of breast milk soaps with various vendors

Wahoo….. You found out you are pregnant. So exciting. Another life is in you.

You might not look pregnant in your first trimester. 1st trimester means to week 13th. Your tummy may look small.

Some mummies have several symptoms like fatigue, morning sickness, lack of appetite, mood swing and heartburn etc. Don’t worry. These symptoms might not applicable to all. Enjoy your pregnancy journey.

Let’s talk about some symptoms and try our best to get over it.

– Fatigue

Do not worry. You are not weak. You need more rest. Rest whenever you can even close your eyes for a while sounds good. You need more energy.

– Morning sickness

From the word morning sickness, many mummies think it happens only in the morning. Unfortunately it doesn’t just strike in the morning. It can happen at any time of the day.
Some suggestions to overcome it, we can use ginger tea or drops, as can small but frequent meals. If it’s severe, you might want to consider talking to your doctor about medications to treat the symptoms of pregnancy-related nausea.

– Lack of appetite

There are some mummies might experience lack of appetite. Loss of appetite occurs when you don’t have the same desire to eat as you once did. The idea of eating food may make you feel nauseous, as if you might vomit if you tried to eat something.

Try to have small meals or snacks instead of heavy meals at one go if you unable to take it. Try some fruits, nuts or vegetables as small snacks.

– Mood swing

These are quite common to some as well. It is due to our hormone changes that affects your level of neurotransmitters. Some flares up easily at the slightest things that irritates them. Try to talk to your husband and anyone close to you. If your condition never improve and more agitated, do seek your gynae ‘s advise.

– Heartburn

Many women experience heartburn for the first trimester of their pregnancy. It is common but generally harmless. Though we cannot eliminate heartburn entirely, we can try to reduce the chances of getting it. Avoid food and beverages that causes gastrointestinal distress. Try to avoid carbonated drinks and acidic food. Try to eat smaller meals throughout the day. During meals, try not to intake too much water though pregnant woman should drink more water. Do drink water after your meals. Do not eat close to bedtime. Wear loose clothings. Do not smoke.

With these examples of changes to our bodies, do not worry too much. Any doubts, do not hesitate to refer to gynae. Important thing is to have a happy mood.

Happy mood = Happy baby. Have a wonderful journey with your baby.

Mummy Eunice
(Mummy Eunice is new to Mummies’ Voices team! She is currently pregnant, so if you have any product you would like her to review, contact us through our Facebook Page!)